


in die vaga

by rockholmes



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Established One-Sided Attraction, F/F, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 16:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6122620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockholmes/pseuds/rockholmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After four summers at Gravity Falls, life became something of a routine. Dipper figured he shouldn't have expected it to last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in die vaga

**Author's Note:**

> what's up here's a super late sequel-ish to my other fanfic, "somnum exterreri solebat." aka the whole "Dipper has a one-sided kind of attraction to Bill, or IS IT one-sided?" becomes a tiny bit clearer. also this will be multichaptered. not too long, though. and yes my haikyuu fanfic AND my pjo fanfic are going to be updated soon I am so sorry.
> 
> you technically don't need to read the other one to understand this. that one's a little more introspective and by that I mean it had literally no dialog. less of a story and more of a character/relationship study. but it might help, I guess.
> 
> tags will be added as chapters come out!

As Dipper walked slowly down the school hallway, one hand on his stomach, he focused his eyes on a poster at the end of the hall.

It was the only way for him to ignore the incessant _shaking_ of the lockers surrounding him. Or, at least, it _seemed_ like they were shaking, but he was sure it had just been in his head. The nurse was just at the other side of the building, just fifty or so steps away, just a couple of tiles, just a few ceiling lights. He could do this. He wouldn't miss the damn math practice for nothing.

School was hard and that definitely wasn't the first time he'd asked to be excused from class. It hopefully was the last, though.

He'd thought that with his seventeenth birthday approaching, he might finally be over everything. Maybe the hallucinations would stop. Maybe he could deal with all of the things he'd seen just a few years prior. Maybe he could actually be a normal, functioning human being.

Obviously not.

 _God_ , he felt like he was gonna hurl.

"Miss Geoffrey?" Dipper weakly said, peering into the archway _(when did he get there?)_ and staring at the blonde woman, turned away and leaning back slightly in her chair.

The nurse started, sniffed, then stared at him, surprise shifting to concern. "Oh, dear. You're back again, Abel?"

"Dipper," he corrected in an irate voice. "My name is _Dipper_. And yeah, I'm, uh - I'm back. It's the same thing as before. Everything's just kinda...wobbly."

That was an understatement, he knew as he looked frantically around, trying to catch anything possibly staring back at him. The nurse led him to a chair, pulling at his arm somewhat roughly. She allowed him to lie down and retreated into the back room to do _something_ he wasn't sure of or cared about. He wished she would let him stay in there long enough to sleep, since that always seemed to help, but she always sent him back before that could happen.

Sleep becoming his primary source of comfort was a bit funny, considering everything. He'd expected that after everything, he'd have horrible, terrifying nightmares. Yet nothing came. In fact, he'd just stopped dreaming altogether, and he's not really sure when that started.

Mabel once asked him if he might be kind of worried about that, but he brushed it off. It proved a lot better than the alternative, at least, and a lack of night terrors meant actually getting good sleep, which in turn allowed Dipper to finally get a hang of having a healthy schedule, working at practical hours, not worrying himself about trivial stuff, and learning how to take things slowly.

It wasn't the easiest for Dipper to learn how to take things slowly.

Readjusting to normal life was unsurprisingly a tedious process, and not only for him.

Dipper was a mess, sure. He realized quickly that his constant paranoia, though always justified and basically _required_ in Gravity Falls, wasn't seen as very socially acceptable in California. A while passed before he realized this, though, because the hallucinations and delusions began almost immediately. Things that weren't really _there_ would appear there, he'd forget things or remember the wrong things. It made life a huge pain.

But Mabel wasn't really that much better off.

Entering high school was great for her. She became popular, loved by all, and the life of a number of parties. Yet, it wasn't hard to tell that she had issues getting used to having regular problems. Going from worrying about her new boyfriend or girlfriend being gnomes or anything otherwise supernatural to worrying about them being a jerk left her feeling a bit more than emotionally outcast.

At least she was better at hiding her feelings than him.

A thermometer exited his mouth. He didn't remember it being there, or Miss Geoffrey sitting next to him. "As usual, you don't have a fever. Would you like to lie down for a bit, or should I call your - "

"No," he insisted automatically. His parents couldn't know about his frequent mental issues. They had _enough_ to worry about. "I'll - I'll just shut my eyes for a bit, no need to call my parents."

She nodded, rolling her chair away, leaving him to his own devices. Dipper let out a breath of relief. Sure, the nurse was never too personal, but he kind of liked it that way. She wasn't too pushy and she never pried, despite him _clearly_ needing serious medical help, but it made everything a whole lot easier for him. He pressed his back to the cold cot, drifting off.

Or, he thought he'd drifted off. The next moment that he'd opened his eyes, half an hour passed and the bell rang.

"Oh," Dipper said, voice still groggy as he sat up. "I should get to my next class. Thank you, Miss Geoffrey."

She'd used to ask him if he was _sure_ , but by then, all she did was wave and nod as he hurried out the door.

The whole thing about having no dreams might have been both a blessing and a curse. He'd close his eyes, thinking he'd just get some eye rest, then find that he'd taken a short nap or even slept for several hours. He'd question whether he'd actually slept or just lost time. He'd wake up refreshed, sure, but not always being able to control when he got sleep made work and school a hassle.

Halfway through his English class, it happens again during the teacher's lecture. A few glances at the clock tell him he's lost almost an hour.

Then, he wonders if maybe that wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep in the nurse's office.

* * *

"Dude, not gonna lie, some of these demons are pretty _hot_."

Dipper snorted at the boy next to him. He'd often brought his books to school, doing on-and-off research about the paranormal outside of his schoolwork. His lunch table consisted of gaming nerds and some "friends" he'd made in middle school who happened to stick by him solely because of that. They were pretty nice, but he'd never considered them to be close to him.

Honestly, the only ones he'd ever thought to be his close friends were in...

"The pictures in that book aren't even good. But yeah, they are hot," Dipper replied, not taking his eyes off of his leftover math homework. "They're demons. Kind of _supposed_ to be seductive, and all. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense if they weren't."

One of the boys, Arthur, let out a short chuckle and looked up from his laptop. "Wow. You act like you really think they exist, or something. Oh, wait."

Laughter erupted from the rest of the table.

Yeah, so, maybe he wasn't _too_ careful about not sharing his experiences with anyone.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. He didn't tell anyone what happened, only that he'd had _encounters_ with the supernatural, and thus the whole school soon came to realize that he really _did_ believe in them.

Surprisingly, instead of becoming a pariah, he _gained_ friends.

Once, when someone approached him about eating lunch together, the boy jokingly claimed, _"Wouldn't wanna be enemies with the guy who says he's met a demon."_

The transition from middle school to high school turned him from being the weird, paranormal-obsessed loser to a creepy, yet somehow cool and mysterious, occult fanatic in everyone else's eyes. Apparently, the supernatural was a fascinating subject for nearly every dark and brooding teen, even if they all considered it fake or exaggerated. Dipper didn't really care.

"Bro," the other boy, Tyler, nudged his side. "I don't get the title. Where'd you even _buy_ this?"

Dipper rolled his eyes. " _Pseudomonarchia Daemonum_ ," he said. "It's pretty easy to find online, but my great uncle gave it to me. It doesn't list all of the demons, but, y'know, it has a good number."

"I thought you weren't religious."

"I'm _not_ ," he groaned, looking up in frustration. "I've already told you guys, I'm not religious. Demons might be used in some religions, but they're not _just_ a religious thing. Plus, I don't even know if these demons _exist_. There are a lot of universes! So, they probably do, but I don't know because I've never _met_ them."

 _You're such an idiot,_ he automatically thought about himself.

Almost everyone at the table gave him strange looks. Some raised their eyebrows, some stifled their laughs, and even though he knew it wasn't purposefully malicious, he still felt a level of embarrassment. Not one of them took him completely seriously, even if they seemed to respect what they saw as him being _crazy_. Dipper huffed, trying to calm himself down, thinking _well, this is the best I'll get._

Their casual acceptance was helpful to him, in a way, but he could still tell that they saw him as a bit more than unstable.

Thankfully, the bell rang just a minute after.

"See you guys later," he called off-handedly, slipping the book out of Tyler's hands and heading to his next class.

Tyler stood up, waving his arm to Dipper. "Wait, dude! Why don't we try that ritual thing over at my house? Show us how to summon demons!"

"That is _literally_ the stupidest idea you've ever had!" Dipper called back, finally joining in with the laughter.

* * *

The next day, it turned out that his desire for the previous nurse visit to be his last wasn't fulfilled at all, but that couldn't exactly have been blamed on him. His chemistry class dealt frequently with fire, and when the fire out of the bunsen burner appeared _blue_ , it just sent his vision into yet another state of discourse.

Dipper needed to see a doctor, or something. Being set off by something as insignificant as blue fire probably wasn't good at _all_.

"You were in here just yesterday, Abel," the nurse said, adjusting her glasses.

"I know, I know, I just," he didn't even bother correcting her on his name this time, only shooting her an exasperated look. "I just haven't been feeling well lately, that's all."

Miss Geoffrey sighed and closed her eyes, starting her next question sounding as if she already knew the answer. "...Would you like me to call h - "

"No, thank you," Dipper replied, raising a hand and sitting on the cot.

He rubbed his eyes and lied on his back, listening intently as the nurse's chair rolled to her desk. This was really not the time to be getting more and more frequent mental issues. It seemed to always happen at the end of the school year. May and June would roll around and suddenly his occasional hallucinations and delusions would suddenly become impossible to deal with.

It was one reason he tried desperately to keep his grades up. If he ended up failing a test, it at least wouldn't affect him too much.

Speaking of tests, he should have been studying for his finals more, but just like every year, he couldn't seem to get his mind off of summer vacation.

They'd be going back to Gravity Falls soon.

The idea alone made him happier. The small town in Oregon always felt like where he belonged, where he could be himself. He would get to see everyone he cared most about, everyone he'd missed so dearly. Well, not _everyone_ , but a good number. He wondered how Soos was doing. They hadn't called in a couple of months, and Dipper assumed it was just because running the Mystery Shack took up time.

He wondered if Wendy would still be working there or if she finally went off to college. She'd considered it for a moment, being the only one in her family to get a "proper" education, but he could tell even over the phone that her heart hadn't really been into it.

Then, he wondered if Pacifica was still doing fine, and about how much she and Mabel would have to catch up with each other.

And he thought about visiting that statue again, just as he did every summer.

Bill Cipher.

He figured the demon was the main reason he'd had such a terrible reaction to blue fire. Sure, they'd defeated him. Bill was dead, more or less. That should have put his worries to rest, but some problems don't just go away. Seeing the hardened physical form of the triangle brought him some level of peace, and it allowed him a way to (sort of) speak to Bill in a controlled environment.

He would rant endlessly about various things, life issues, how he'd felt.

Something about it relaxed him.

A low ring filled his ears. That was the lunch bell. He wondered for a moment if he could stay in the office until his next class, but Miss Geoffrey rolled over to him before he could ask and began, "You should get something to eat, Abel," her voice lowered, "and if any of this has to do with your home life, I can direct you to a counselor, or you can talk to me about it."

It took a moment to register her offer in his head.

"W - wait, no. No, thanks. My home life is fine," he stuttered out in alarm. "I just haven't been getting great sleep lately, is all. Stressed out."

She nodded in understanding. That was a complete lie, though. He'd actually been getting great sleep. No nightmares, no dreams, nothing to wake him up in the middle of the night or keep him wanting to stay awake. And the stress was really nothing more than usual, and nothing he couldn't handle. Stress was a comfort for him. If he wasn't being worked, he got bored.

The real issue had to do with stuff he couldn't exactly talk to much of anyone about.

"I should get going."

He stood up and ignored the dizziness, carefully hurrying out the door.

Honestly, he wasn't that hungry. School food didn't help with that - everything looked barely edible, like a smaller, kid-version of real food. A slider with dried out bread and disgusting meat, a package of carrots, and some sad-looking orange slices covered his styrofoam plate. The lunch room was deafening as he picked silently at his food, lost in thought.

"Hey, bro," the familiar voice of his sister came from behind him as she gave his shoulder a little shove. "Last real day of school!"

After a second of shock, he looked up and smiled. Mabel was being quietly ushered away by her friends, grinning down at him and holding a plate of equally gross food. The other boys at his table stared at his sister, always surprised to see one of the _popular_ girls in their vicinity. He wasn't sure why. Sure, she was pretty, but Mabel was friendly with just about everything that had a pulse.

Seeing her immediately brightened his day.

The other girls started to pull Mabel away with increasing urgency. "Come _on_ ," he'd heard one of them say, "I haven't even gotten lunch yet, and we can't be seen with _losers_."

"Oh," Mabel eventually said, "I guess the line for lunch is getting pretty long. See ya, bro-bro!"

How she got to be in the group of the school's popular girls, Dipper would never understand. Her personality just didn't fit in with them, but it also didn't seem like she'd be out of it anytime soon, either. They all were stuck-up and wealthy, donning expensive makeup and neat outfits. Most of them took part in gossiping, and even though Mabel tried to act like she was interested, it was pretty obvious that she wasn't.

She didn't ever bully anyone or treat anyone rudely. Everyone in the school seemed to love her, even the ones jealous of her.

In all honesty, the girls she ended up hanging around reminded him a lot of Pacifica.

...Which was probably why they took a liking to Mabel, he reasoned.

* * *

"You're just paranoid, Dip-Dop," laughed Mabel, as if that made his concerns any less valid.

He brought a hand up to his eyes and rubbed. "Yeah, I am. That doesn't change the fact that I'm probably right! You're not taking his seriously at _all_ , Mabel. Our _futures_ are at stake here!" Arms spread out, he pleaded with her.

Mabel shoved her brush down on her vanity and turned to him. " _I_ know _I'll_ be fine, and _you_ know _you'll_ be fine. Quit worrying!"

Running his fingers through his hair, he gave an exaggerated sigh. "Mabel, it's the night before. We should have started getting prepared for this _way_ earlier! What if everything goes wrong? What if - what if you fail? What if _I_ fail?"

" _You have straight A's!_ " she yelled.

" _But we need to pass our exams!_ " replied Dipper in an equally loud voice.

He'd been trying for an _hour_ to convince her to study with him. Sure, he'd done the math more times than probably necessary and knew that with his grades, he'd be able to pass all of his classes regardless of how he did on the tests. It still was important to him to not have to worry about explaining to his parents why after all of his test-taking exercises he _still_ was able to fail his exams.

Sighing, he sat down on her bed, running a hand absently over the manually-placed sparkles. He remembered that she'd made two of them and gave one to Pacifica, who begrudgingly took it but probably used it far more often than she'd let on.

Damn.

Even while trying to keep his mind on something else, he found himself thinking back to people in Gravity Falls. His heart really did belong there, though he already knew that. It wasn't a surprise; of course he'd be thinking of Gravity Falls more than usual. They were, in fact, going to be going back there in just a few days. It made him excited and anxious all at once.

Every year, he'd wonder if he should feel guilty about being so happy to leave. Shouldn't he have cared about the people there?

His sister was staring into the mirror, seemingly lost in thought, but it looked as if she had something to say.

Mabel's gaze was distant as she asked, "Hey, bro. Aren't you gonna miss your friends here?"

 _Hah_ , he questioned for a moment if she'd been reading his mind, or if this was another example of their _"twin telepathy,"_ as she liked to call it.

"My friends wanted to summon a demon for fun," he replied, voice deadpan. "Why do you ask? Are you gonna miss yours?"

"No," her response came a lot more quickly than he expected. She sounded surprised at herself, as if she was just coming to this realization, and backpedaled when her tone sounded dry. "I mean, y'know, not really? Sure, I _like_ them, and I like hanging around them. They just..."

"...Aren't family?" Dipper tried.

She snapped her fingers and grinned. "Yeah, exactly! Wendy and Soos are family."

That, he couldn't deny. The two were just as much family as their parents or their uncles or each other. For Mabel, Pacifica had also grown to be in that category. He could tell that the two were pretty obviously interested in each other, but he also understood not wanting a long distance relationship. They called a lot, sure, but they only ever physically saw each other during the summer.

Not being able to physically see the object of your feelings was pretty difficult.

Dipper could attest to that.

* * *

Finals went a lot more smoothly than they had most years.

He managed to only fail three.

In the end, his grades were fine. The usual lecture he would get from his dad was fairly short, since he passed all of his classes. He always passed, but they were increasingly worried about how he would be completely unfocused during tests. It wasn't like he could just outright tell them that he was hallucinating and falling asleep without realizing.

With how they were, they'd probably send them to a doctor immediately. He didn't really want that to happen.

The school nurse was okay, but he didn't exactly trust most people in the medical field for...various reasons. Though, he understood that judging all doctors from _one_ therapist who just _happened_ to be a goblin in disguise might have been a little harsh. That happened in Gravity Falls, and he knew that what happened in Gravity Falls usually didn't happen anywhere else.

In fact, he was fairly sure he wouldn't find anything weird in California. It disappointed him a little.

Anticipation for Gravity Falls grew more and more every day until -

"What day do you two want to catch a bus to Oregon?"

Immediately, Mabel answered their mother with an _as soon as possible_ , and Dipper nodded his head in agreement. Their parents knew by that point that they'd wanted to spend their summers there, though the most they could tell on that note was that close friends lived in the small town. Neither Mabel nor Dipper had ever opened up about the strange occurrences.

It went without saying that their parents _probably_ wouldn't want them going back to a place that almost saw the end of the world.

"The buses won't be running through here tomorrow," their father said, not taking his eyes from his newspaper. "How's the weekend sound?"

Mabel cheered, throwing her hands in the air.

It was Thursday. The weekend was just a couple of days away, Dipper realized quietly as he stared at the table. A couple of days, and they'd be in Gravity Falls. A couple of days, and they'd see Wendy and Soos again. A couple of days, and they'd see the weird and unusual that was seen as normal in that particular town again. Everything would change.

 _Everything_ would change in just a couple of days.

* * *

Summer days always seemed to go by a lot more quickly than school days.

Dipper found that the weekend didn't take long to arrive. In just a few hours, he'd be going back to Gravity Falls. The sleepy town in Oregon felt so much closer in just a span of a few planetary shifts. He wondered how everyone was doing, if they'd missed him as much as he missed them, or if he'd experienced anything new and interesting.

He was counting the minutes on the last day.

Though he knew he wouldn't, he wished he would dream that night, just to keep him distracted. Every summer was a routine by then, but there was a looming feeling that came with each year. Like he was waiting on the edge of his seat for something he had no idea about. That perhaps had to do with the ever-watching demon.

The dead one.

As he got ready for bed that night, he stared intently in the mirror. Dipper traced a faded scar on his shoulder.

An eye. Or, it _was_ an eye.

At that point, it looked more like a weird blob of slightly lighter skin in the vague shape of an eye. It was given to him years before.

He'd never received solid confirmation from the demon that he was the one to mark Dipper, but there was no need. The eye couldn't have possibly come from anywhere else, he'd reasoned, and the circumstances were just too perfect for there to have been a different cause. Dipper was consistently having nightmares about Bill, nonstop terrors plaguing his sleep

And when he'd tried to convince himself that Bill _wasn't_ tormenting him, that it was all just in his head, he was met with a bleeding eye on his shoulder.

Either Bill had absolutely _no_ idea how Dipper felt, or the old triangle was a real sick fuck. It was almost definitely the latter. The dream demon never failed to show just how much of a monster he was. Still, messing with a sexually frustrated and confused tween was kind of super creepy. Not that Dipper entirely _minded_ , but it made his sexuality a serious question while growing up, for both his friends _and_ him.

Was he bisexual, or something? He figured that was the only explanation, but didn't care enough to elaborate further.

He rubbed at the faded scar, staring at himself in the mirror. "What kind of teenager _am_ I?" he asked himself quietly.

By then, he should've let it go. Bill was dead. Gone. Destroyed. Erased. It didn't really feel like that was true, though. That summer four years ago didn't feel enough like _the end_. But he should've realized that it was. He found that, in a way, he could accept that Bill was really not going to come back, and rejoiced. He wasn't worried that an unknown force was watching his every movement, that a demon could torment him whenever he wanted.

And yet, he'd occasionally talk to Bill as if he were observing from far away. Somehow, though, the idea didn't bother him. It was like having a friend he couldn't see or communicate with. Kinda.

"You and I really should've talked about all this," he whispered, laughing quietly. "I'd almost think you were _teasing_ me."

It could've been that the scar was just a way of luring Dipper in more, of _seducing_ him, or something. He knew that most of his thoughts at the time regarding the yellow creature were less than pure, almost always filled with fascination and animosity and more than one type of interest, and there was no way that _wasn't_ common knowledge for Bill. The realization that he'd been played might have angered him at some point, but then, it didn't really matter.

Bill had tricked the Pines and the Pines had tricked him. It was fairly even, all things considered.

Well. Not _even_ , but close enough.

There was something funny about how Bill seemed to haunt his thoughts as if he were still alive. And Dipper knew that if he had nightmares anymore, the triangle would haunt those, too. He did before, at least. It seemed like once the demon was destroyed, Dipper stopped having the ability to dream. He doubted there was any direct correlation, but it was interesting to think as much.

His reflection was exhausted and much older than it had been four years prior, all in the expression alone.

Memories of the monster plagued his mind. Perhaps if his thoughts back then were less corrupt, perhaps if he wasn't so obsessed with the flying yellow eye, perhaps if he wasn't robbed of his innocence at such a an age, he would be able to build a regular, healthy romantic relationship with some young girl or boy. And yet, he wasn't interested in anything like that at all.

Every time he, a seventeen-year-old boy, found himself thinking particularly _impure_ thoughts, he couldn't help but find himself thinking of Bill Cipher. The demon was a dramatic part of his sexual realization in his youth. That, on its own, was difficult to accept.

And as he stared into his own eyes, at the eye on his shoulder, as he thought of how he'd be going back to the town that left him with those contradictory emotions, he found those coming back. Everything he'd felt as a hormonal twelve-year-old returned to him. Everything he could remember he'd wanted back then was a reality again. The eye burned on his skin, as if it were fresh.

His own gaze hardened.

"You're _dead_ and somehow you _still_ find a way to mess with me," Dipper said aloud to no one, reaching down his pants with an eye roll.


End file.
